Applied Cognitive Psychology - Leiden University (2019)

Lecture 2: Fundamentals of Cognition

Perception:

Any type of sensory information

Most of the information first comes in to the Thalamus, and then spreads e.g. visual cortex, primary sensory cortex...

For ACP: we are interested in only some low-level perceptual phenomena: hering grid, motion-after-effect, color-after-effect

Focus of ACP: what drives our perception?

Bottom-up driven processes drive our perception in an automatic way.

Top-down processing drives our perception through expectancies. Example: A I3 C or I2 I3 I4

If the information quality goes down, then the top-down influence increases

Limitations:

Broadbent’s Attentional Filter: Early selection on attended channel and physical properties (pitch, color, loudness). But: there must be some semantic processing left.

-Example: dichotic listening task ---> while people cannot recall what they heard, it still influences their actions

Attention

According to William James, attention is similar to consciousness, it implies concentrating on one thing.

Overt attention: Any kind of physical change that follows our attention - e.g. head turn

Covert attention: The focus of our attention changes without any phyisical change (Posner) - even if eye is centered in one place, we can focus on other things.

Endogenous attention: conscious, controlled effort (top-down)

Exogenous attention: automatic, e.g.: someone sneezes in the exam room and you automatically pay attention to it

Visual search:

Feauture integration process: Different feautures of an object are processed in different parts of the brain. When target and distractor differ in only one feauture, it is easier to notice.

Pop-out: target is seen automatially - e.g. green circle amongst pink circles

Conjunction: more difficult to note - e.g.: search for orange square amongst blue squares and orange triangles

Attentional control:

Example: learning to drive a car requires conscious attention, but once skill is mastered it becomes somewhat automatic

Disadvantage to things becoming automatic: difficult to deal with unexpected situations

Working memory

Limited capacity,limited duration

Primacy: you will remember better the first couple of letters in a sequence

Recency: you will remember better the last couple of letters in a sequence

Chuncking: Chuncking into information that makes sense to us so we remember it better.

Example: PASAAICIBF ---> FBI CIA ASAP 

Interference: More difficult when two informations interfere with eachother. Example: Stroop task

There's 3 parts to working memory:

1. Central Executive: Manages Visuospatial sketchpad and Phonological loop

2: Visuospatial sketchpad: we interact with visual information

- Maintain and manipulate visual information

- Spatial insight, mental rotation

3. Phonological loop

-capacity of the phonological loop is fixed amount (duration) of speech sounds ~ 2.5 seconds

- articulatory loop: worse recall if articulation of words is suppressed by counting aloud.

-phonological store: similarity effect – letters that sound similar (BDPGV) are more difficult to retain than letters with distinctive sounds (BFHXR)

3 functions of the Central Executive (according to Miyake):

1. Inhibition: capacity to supress responses

-Simon effect: incongruent response-stimulus location

-Stroop effect: incongruent word-color

-Stop signal: halting response

2. Shifting: cognitive flexibility to switch between different tasks or rules

- Example: Wisconsin card sorting task

-Switching Cost: longer reaction time, lower accuracy

3. Updataing: the continuous monitoring and quick addition or deletion in your working memory

Long-term memory

-Semantic memory: knowing the meaning of something e.g.: denim = certain type of fabric

-Episodic memory: knowing where the information or knowledge comes from e.g. : a particular dye from Nîmes

-Explicit memory: conscious -->recall

-Implicit memory: unconscious --> familiarity

3 stages in long term memory

1. Encoding: encode a schema, better result with cues 

2. Store: memory trace strong at first but decayes over time, eventually levels off. If there is interference, the storage is more difficult e.g.: 11th vs 12th birthday party

3. Retrieval: recognition is easiest (more trivial), spontaneous recall is hardest

Forgetting:

-Induced forgetting can occur when retrieving memory first time only strengthening one part of the memory and not the other, which in time makes you completely forget the second part

-Reconsolidation: remembering additional information than what actually happened

- Google effect: we don't store information because we assume it's stored somewhere else

--> those who think what they type is saved somewhere don't remember as well on their own

-Transactive memory: you know where to find info rather than having info

Decision making:

Higher order function

Part of brain that developed later

Functions:

- Problem-solving

- Reasoning and argumentation

- Making decisions and judgements

- making plans

Strategies:

-Heuristics: low effort, sloppy, biased

-Normative models: accurate but slow, using rules

Reasoning:

-Deductive: general to specific

-Inductive: specific to general

Situational awareness: you need to be aware of the situation you are in to react to it effectively

There is an optimal level of stress/arousal for memory. Too low: little alertness, too much: PTSD etc

Unconscious biases influence our behavior

Emotion

-Sesnsitivity: people differ in emotional awareness

-The level to which you are aware of your heart rate indicates how aware you are of your emotions

Morality

-Sometimes we make decisions that are not in our best interest but rather because of our feeling of justice -->e.g.: hunger strike